Like many Americans, LBJ felt a cultural affinity for the people of Israel.8 He told a B’nai B’rith meeting in 1968, “Most, if not all of you, have very deep ties with the land and with the people of Israel, as I do, for my Christian faith sprang from yours.”9 While he regarded Israelis as tough pioneers, he regarded Arabs as “culturally different” with experiences “alien to his own.”10 As Spiegel notes, “Johnson tended to see the Israelis fighting the Arabs as a modern-day version of the Texans struggling with the Mexicans. The analogy between the Alamo and Masada was not far below the surface.”11 Cultural factors certainly undergirded Johnson’s perspective; however, as president—entrusted with executing the foreign relations of the United States—the Cold War and domestic politics weighed much more heavily on his thinking regarding weapons sales to Israel.
As more and more Soviet weaponry made its way to client states in the region, Israel requested weaponry from the United States. According to Levey, between 1955 and 1965, the Soviet Union sold Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen approximately $2 billion worth of weaponry. Egypt was the main recipient. By the beginning of 1965, Egypt had 300 combat planes, including MiG jet interceptors and Tupelov bombers; by comparison, Israel had 250 warplanes, but no bombers. In terms of tanks, Egypt enjoyed a qualitative advantage over Israel. At the beginning of 1964, Israel had 798 tanks, compared with Egypt’s 739, but 300 of Israel’s tanks were obsolete M-4 Shermans, and only 150 British-made Centurions were of relatively recent manufacture.12
The United States preferred that Israel purchase its weapons from Western Europe. France had served as Israel’s primary weapons supplier. Like Israel, France resented Nasser’s influence in the region. But the Israel-France relationship cooled after the French exit from Algeria, and Western Europe proved reluctant to provide Israel with more weapons.13
U.S. weapons sales to Israel had grown from virtually nonexistent in the 1950s to several select packages in the 1960s. During 1962, John Kennedy authorized the first sale of U.S. weaponry to Israel—the defensive HAWK antiaircraft missile systems. But Kennedy refused to sell offensive weapons, in part because of Israel’s controversial nuclear weapons program, and also to limit American involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict. In early 1964, Israel requested to purchase five hundred tanks from the United States to offset Soviet tanks sold to Egypt. Both the State Department and the Defense Department recognized the validity of Israel’s arms request but also warned of the political cost to U.S. relations with Arab states. Johnson agreed with the assessment and offered to help Israel “behind the scenes” to find alternate sources. Soon thereafter, Israel quietly signed agreements with Britain and West Germany for tank purchases.14
In the summer of 1964, the Kingdom of Jordan informed U.S. policymakers that unless it could purchase fighter jets from the United States, Jordan would buy MiG fighters from the Soviet Union. Naturally, Johnson did not want Jordan to develop closer relations with Moscow. And while he wanted to bolster King Hussein’s government, he did not want to furnish Jordan with weapons that could potentially be used against Israel. Hixson details how the Israel lobby worked hard to scuttle the deal, and then decided to support it so long as Israel could acquire more sophisticated weaponry from the United States.15 Thus, the arms race would accelerate because Israel would undoubtedly demand a similar deal, and Soviet client states would demand more weapons, too. Johnson promised to sell Jordan twenty F-104 jets in February 1965.
The promise of more U.S. weapons to Jordan amplified Israel’s request for weapons. To make matters worse, West Germany decided to abandon its agreement with Israel after delivering less than half of the number of promised tanks.16 Still reluctant to sell weapons to Israel directly, Johnson sent National Security Council staffer Robert Komer and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs W. Averell Harriman to Israel to stress that the Jordanian package was simply to prevent a similar deal with the Soviets, and that Israel should expect no weapons sales from the United States. But the Harriman-Komer mission failed to get Israel on board with a U.S.-Jordan weapons agreement without, at least, a similar agreement with Israel.17
Cold War politics made an arms race in the Middle East unavoidable, which positioned the United States closer to Israel. To pacify the Israelis, Johnson agreed to sell the tanks promised from West Germany, which marked the first time that a U.S. president agreed to sell offensive weapons to the State of Israel. However, Israeli officials balked at this proposal, too, for being insufficient. Johnson then agreed to supply Israel with arms comparable to those it sold to Jordan, but with an understanding that it was a one-time deal; in other words, Johnson emphasized that such a sale would not set a precedent.18 Although Israeli officials continued to push for a decisive military advantage over Arab states, Johnson wanted to “turn talks away from an open-ended arms commitment.”19 Johnson agreed to supply Israel with ninety tanks by 1966, along with another one hundred tanks of superior quality to those sold to Jordan, and the promise to sell Israel twenty-four aircraft if it could not find a supplier in Western Europe.20 Selling more weapons to Israel threatened to undermine U.S. claims to evenhandedness in the Middle East, but American officials were in a bind given Soviet involvement in the region.
Johnson and Congress
Johnson initially enjoyed overwhelming support from the legislative branch (and the American people) for his foreign policies. Congress had deferred to the president during the early years of the Cold War to give him enough freedom to effectively fight the Soviet Union, a dynamic often called the Imperial Presidency.21 But beginning in early 1966, Sen. J. William Fulbright (D-AR), chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, started to publicly question American involvement in Vietnam. Fulbright’s efforts would eventually lead to a full congressional assault on presidential foreign policy during the Nixon and Ford years. According to Robert David Johnson, “By the middle of 1968, a majority of Senate Democrats and a growing number of GOP senators, while not willing to advocate withdrawal from Vietnam, were sufficiently radicalized by the war to reverse their previous support for a weak legislative role in international affairs.”22
The Johnson administration tried to limit congressional pressure. In August 1965, Komer and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy met with eleven Jewish members of the House of Representatives to offer what the administration called “an insider’s view,” in order “to reassure our Hill friends by appearing to lift the veil on our Israeli affairs on a confidential basis.” The key was secrecy. Bundy and Komer informed the congressmembers that U.S. aid to Israel, primarily economic to that point, totaled more than $1 billion and noted that “we want to convince them that we are really going all out to support Israel, so long as we can do it quietly.” The message from Bundy and Komer was this: “the more quiet … the more we can do.”23
As with East Asia, Congress proved to be a thorn in Johnson’s side about foreign policy in the Middle East. Pressure mounted on Johnson to sell Skyhawk jets to Israel. On February 1, 1966, more than seventy-five representatives wrote Secretary of State Dean Rusk to communicate their displeasure for an impending deal with Jordan without a corresponding deal for Israel.24 It was no secret to the administration that Israel possessed a great deal of influence over members of Congress through lobbyists, and Komer pressed Johnson to “cope with this problem by requiring the Israelis themselves quietly to warn off their Hill lobbyists.”25 Johnson finally agreed to sell Skyhawk bomber jets to Israel that February, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara insisted that the Israelis agree to “sew up everyone in Congress to keep quiet.”26
Just like the deal on tanks, President Johnson and his administration made it clear to Israeli officials that the sale of the Skyhawks was an exceptional case and constituted no change in the U.S.-Israel relationship. American officials informed the Israelis “not to bother us on planes for the next several years.”27 Secretary McNamara also wanted Congress to